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Playlist: The Promised Land's Portfolio

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Featured

Nalini Nadkarni

From American Public Media | Part of the The Promised Land series | 54:00

Pioneering researcher and "queen of the forest canopy" Nalini Nadkarni, shows host Majora Carter the wonders of the Olympic rain forest — from the treetops! And the two visit a correctional facility where Nadkarni’s innovative Moss Project employs a team of prisoners turned botanists.

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“What about the canopy?” Before Nalini Nadkarni raised the question, scientists pretty much focused on the ground. 
 
Nadkarni has discovered a whole ecosystem 30 to 200 feet up in the air. The so-called “queen of forest canopy research” has spent decades climbing the trees of Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon, and the Pacific Northwest, exploring the world of animals and plants that live in the canopy and learning how this upper layer of the forest interacts with the world below it. Her work relates directly to three of the most pressing environmental issues of our time: maintenance of biodiversity, stability of world climate, and sustainability of forests.
 
This pioneering researcher shows host Majora Carter the wonders of Washington state’s Olympic rainforest. And the two visit a correctional facility where Nadkarni’s innovative Moss Project employs a team of prisoners turned botanists to grow mosses that would otherwise be harvested from fragile natural habitats for use in the horticultural trade.
 
Creator of the Big Canopy Database to help scientists store and understand the rich trove of data she and others are uncovering, Nadkarni boils it all down to this: “When we come to understand nature, we are touching the most deep and most important parts of ourself.” 

Brenda Palms Barber

From American Public Media | Part of the The Promised Land series | 54:00

Brenda Palms Barber is driven by a certainty that "people deserve second chances and you can choose to turn your life around." Brenda started a transitional jobs program for ex-convicts that teaches life skills through beekeeping. She takes host Majora Carter through the streets of Chicago, past churches and crack houses, to check out the beehives and chat with ex-offenders who are now the core workforce of this nonprofit enterprise.

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Brenda Palms Barber wasn’t always drawn to beekeeping. But her quest to find work for residents of Chicago’s economically disadvantaged North Lawndale neighborhood — where some 50 percent of adults have been in the criminal justice system — led her to start Sweet Beginnings, a transitional jobs program for formerly incarcerated individuals and others with significant barriers to employment.

Host Majora Carter tours Sweet Beginnings’ honey factory, inspects the beehives, and chats with ex-offenders who are now the core workforce of this nonprofit enterprise. Sweet Beginnings’ Beeline products — raw honey and honey-based body care products — are now sold throughout the Midwest.

And the recidivism rate for former Sweet Beginnings employees is below 4 percent, compared to the Illinois average of 55 percent and a national average of 65 percent. For Brenda and her team, transforming street skills into mainstream competitive skills is a sweet success indeed.